When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. When a freezing winter gives you thousands of tons of snow, what's an Alpine farmer to do? Harvest the snow and sell it to ski resorts, of course!

In Austria the biggest "snow harvesters" are the owners of the Grossglockner Hochalpenstrassen AG (GroAG), a 40-mile stretch of road 8,200 feet above sea level which is Europe's highest Alpine crossing.

GroAG spokesman Dietmar Schondorfer said: "Even if it doesn't snow, every day we have tonnes of snow dumped on the road by the wind, all we have to do is drive back and forward to scoop it up.